Support Fonograf Editions

As a non-profit record label/book press started in 2016, Fonograf Editions has always focused on putting records and books into the world that might not find a home elsewhere. We are a volunteer-led organization that treats our editorial work as a vocation, not a job. As our mission reads, Fonograf Editions exists to take risks that push the boundaries of sound, text, and genre. We value the interdisciplinary, experimental, and unclassifiable, and we strive to bring to life works that resist, bend, and break expectations.

With our distributor Small Press Distribution (SPD), ceasing operations on Thursday, March 28 without any warning, Fonograf Editions, like so many other small presses, was immediately thrown into significant disarray. As little as three days prior to their dissolution, SPD asked us to send them hundreds of books to sell, books that we are still unable to locate.

In past two years Fonograf Editions has released over sixteen books and records, by such writers as Audre Lorde, Alice Notley, John Ashbery, Timmy Straw, Zoe Tuck, Isabel Zapata, Hilary Plum and Cody-Rose Clevidence. These works have been lauded at outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the London Review of Books, LitHub, Frieze, and many others. The editors at Fonograf Editions do not take a salary for their work, and the press exists on sales (hundreds of which were made through SPD) and grants.

Like many small presses distributed by SPD, Fonograf Editions had not received three quarters (Quarters 3 and 4 of 2023 and Quarter 1 of 2024) of royalty checks from the distributor, an amount that we estimate to be at $12,000. Shipping and handling costs to our new distributor will be at least $3,000, as SPD had 1,250 of our books and records in stock to distribute/sell to stores.

In the next two years Fonograf Editions will be releasing 19+ books and records by a wide variety of established and debut authors, from Matthew Broaddus, Kimberly Alidio, Sara Gilmore, Marina Blitshteyn, Katie Naughton, Esther Kondo Heller, Igor Gulin (trans. by Timmy Straw and Ainsley Morse), Jaime Gil de Biedma (tran. James Nolan), and Tristan Tzara (trans. Heather Green). Fonograf Editions is also committed to publishing at least three manuscripts from its current Open Genre Book Prize contest. The press is also endeavoring to put out a long out of print rock album by Anne Sexton, from her group Anne Sexton and Her Kind. Finally, our forthcoming collaborative anthology, A Mouth Holds Many Things, collects hybrid-literary works from 36 women and nonbinary BIPOC writer-artists, and is the first anthology of its kind.

Any donation that you are able to make will allow us to put out the above releases, in roughly the order that we hoped to prior to the ending of SPD. It will further allow us to pay our authors the royalty money that they deserve, getting them that money in a timely manner.

If you are unable to make a donation or purchase a book at this time, there are other impactful ways that you can provide support to Fonograf Editions. One way is to share a link to this fundraiser with like-minded friends and family who believe in the type of work that we publish. Another is to ask your local library or bookstore to purchase Fonograf Editions titles that you are interested in reading or listening to.

All donations are tax-deductible.

In our eight year history Fonograf Editions has never asked for funding directly from its supporters. So if you are unable to make a donation, or can only donate a dollar--thank you anyway. We love the work that we do and will continue to do it, no matter what.

Read more about the SPD closure and the fallout here:

Lit Hub

NPR

The New York Times

CLMP

Jane Friedman's The Hot Sheet

Publishers Weekly (3/28/24)

Publishers Weekly (4/2/24)

Publishers Weekly (4/8/24)